With these intoxicating spring days finally upon us, I couldn’t resist picking up some asparagus and making my first batch of asparagus soup for our New Hampshire Inn! The recipe is simple, and is made without chicken stock for our vegetarian friends. Here’s how it’s made:

2 bunches asparagus (about 2 pounds)
4 tablespoons butter
1 leek, chopped
1 cup shallots, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 small potatoes, boiled in a separate pot

salt and pepper to taste
minced chives

1/4 cup heavy cream

Cut the woody, tough sections of the asparagus from the bottom of the stalks and boil for 30 minutes in about 6 cups of water. Reserve water, throw away stalks. Cut tips off asparagus for garnish, cut remaining stalks into 1/2 inch pieces. Reuse water to blanch asparagus tips. Reserve. Boil potatoes until soft. Saute leeks and shallots in butter for 3 minutes, until soft. Add garlic, saute  1 minute. Do not brown. Add asparagus pieces. Saute for 2 minutes, stirring. Put the reserved water back into the pot and cook the vegetables for 8 minutes, until asparagus is soft. Add potatoes to the mixture, salt and pepper to taste. Puree with a blender until smooth. Add water if it’s too thick, then finish with cream. Mix in chives and asparagus tips. Serve hot or cold. Bon Appetit!

I’m so excited about this new dessert that I want to share the recipe so that others can try it! It’s delicious, easy to make and beautiful to look at! It’s called a Pavlova, and I discovered it when I was invited to a holiday party that was focused on international food and wine. My assignment was to bring a bottle of wine and a dessert from New Zealand. The wine was easy because I love New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, so I picked up a bottle of my favorite Sauvignon Blanc from the Kim Crawford Vineyard. The dessert was a bit more challenging; I had no idea what New Zealanders enjoy for dessert.

I did a little research and discovered the Pavlova. A Pavlova is a dessert made with a meringue base, covered with about an inch of whipped cream and topped with the fresh fruit of your choice. I chose strawberries, raspberries, and kiwi in keeping with the season. It has to be made just before serving so I made the meringue and whipped the cream, cut up the strawberries and kiwi ahead of time and packed it up to take to the party to assemble at dessert time. It was easy to put together, and looked great! Everyone loved it!

Here’s my recipe for Pavlova, which serves 8-10 people.

1/2 cup egg whites at room temperature (from about 4 eggs)

1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2 tablespoons brown sugar

12 strawberries, trimmed and sliced

2 kiwi fruit, peeled, cored and sliced

1 cup fresh raspberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk the egg whites, cream of tartar and salt in a mixer until foamy. Add sugar, cornstarch, vinegar and vanilla and whip until stiff and glossy, about 6-8 minutes more. On a sheet pan, trace a 9-inch circle on a piece of parchment paper. Flip paper so that you can see the circle and pile the meringue in to the circle. Smooth top, without losing the loft of the meringue. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 300 degrees. Bake 45 minutes more. Turn off the oven, prop the door open and leave in the oven until it is cool.

Whip the cream with the brown sugar and slather it on top of the meringue. Top with fresh fruit and serve. Bon Appetit! If you’re at our Chesterfield NH Inn on New Year’s Eve, we’re going to make individual Pavlovas for our special New Year’s Eve dessert. I bet they’ll be great with champagne!

Local Maple Syrup

After a long winter with snowstorm after snowstorm, spring has finally started to arrive at our Inn in New Hampshire. The daytime temperatures are now above freezing, most days, with temperatures dipping below freezing at night. It’s perfect “sugaring” weather! Maple sugaring is what our local farmers call the process of collecting the sap from our sugar maple trees and boiling it into maple syrup. As you drive along the back roads near our romantic northern New England B&B, you can see the local “sugar houses” with steam billowing out into the cold air as the sap is boiled down into maple syrup. One of my favorite things to do is top stop at a sugar house when they’re boiling and ask for a taste of the fresh maple syrup. It’s delicious!

All of this “sugaring” inspires us to use maple syrup in our cooking and the following Maple Cheesecake is one of our favorites!

Maple Cheesecake

10-12 servings

2 cups ground graham crackers

3 T. sugar

1/2 t. cinnamon

6 T. melted butter

3 8-ounce pkgs. cream cheese at room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

3 T. flour

1/4 t. salt

1 c. reduced maple syrup (1 cup maple syrup, simmered 4 minutes to reduce and concentrate flavor)

2/3 cup sour cream

2 T. vanilla extract

4 eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Add melted butter and stir until crumbs are evenly moistened. Wrap outside of 9 inch spring form pan in aluminum foil so that the base and sides are covered and sealed. Press crumb mixture into bottom and about 2 inches up the sides of the pan. Bake about 10 minutes. Cool on rack. For filling, beat cream cheese with electric mixer with paddle until very smooth. Add brown sugar, flour and salt. Beat until blended and smooth. Add reduced syrup, sour cream and vanilla. Beat until blended. Add eggs, 2 at a time, and beat just until well blended after each addition. Tap bowl on counter several times to release any air bubbles. Pour filling into cooled crust. Bake cake in a water bath ( pan of warm water about 1 inch up the sides of the pan) for 1 and a half hours. Turn oven off, open door a few inches and let the cake sit in the oven for an hour. Remove from oven and water bath and allow to cool on a rack. Serve with fresh berries.